


the warmth of the dark

by smolsicky



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, My little babies, hurt/comfort lite???, mulder just wants to cuddle with scully tbh, these cuties are so in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 15:23:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17583386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolsicky/pseuds/smolsicky
Summary: there’s only one bed in the hotel room and it’s snowing and they were walking around in the cold for hours and now scully is shaking and mulder feels bad and offers to cuddle with her and at first she’s indignant but the idea is growing on her omg these cuties love each other so much





	the warmth of the dark

Retrospectively, Mulder should have checked the weather forecast before he planned a night long stakeout in the middle of January. They checked into the shitty motel a little after three in the morning, Scully red-faced and quite possibly angrier than Mulder had ever seen her.

“We only have one room left.” The man informed him sullenly, not really making eye contact with Mulder so much as staring just passed him, at Scully. Mulder gave him the best winning smile he could under the circumstances, which was admittedly lackluster and not at all up to his usual wattage.

“We’ll take it.” 

Scully wordlessly stepped up to the counter and took the proffered keys from him and turned without a word. Mulder amiably ambled after her, internally cataloguing all the ways in which he could apologize. 

The motel, in addition to being sketchy as all get out and only one floor, didn’t seem to have any decent heating. Scully gave a great shiver before thrusting the door open and quietly scoffing. There was one bed. Of fucking course. 

Mulder grimaced at this. He normally would make a joke of some sort at this but Scully was vibrating, whether from rage or from cold he couldn’t tell, and he was actually getting to be a little concerned. 

“We’ll make a pillow barricade. Or I’ll sleep in the chair. It’s my fault that we’re here anyways.” He gently nudged her small frame through the door and closed and locked it behind him. He was feeling unusually jumpy (probably being that he was going on 40 hours of being awake) and the motel clerk had a seedy look to him. Or perhaps it was just the look that the man had given Scully. 

Scully gave the tiniest smile at Mulder’s chivalry. “That won’t be nec-”. She broke off to turn away from him, pinching her nose shut and stifling a sneeze. Mulder raised his eyebrows and felt a pit of guilt settle, down in the bottom of his stomach. 

“Bless you. You shouldn’t do that, you know. It can blow out your eardrums.” He tried to subtly herd her and her duffel bag to the bathroom, clenching and unclenching his fingers to keep from taking her soaking wet clothes off of her himself. She rolled her eyes but accepted it, pulling off her coat. After digging through her bag and pulling out a pair of pajamas, she turned and made her way to the bathroom.

“I’m well aware, Mulder. I am, after all, a medical doctor.” Mulder’s eyes followed her into the bathroom, lingering on the door even after it resolutely shut behind her. He did his best to keep up a steady stream of chatter about how he was sure that the aliens would show themselves tomorrow, and boy had they really shown them, but all he could focus on was the steady stream of sniffling and teeth chattering coming from within. By the time Scully vacated the bathroom to grant Mulder his turn, he was coming up on full mother hen mode. It looked like it was warranted. Scully’s flushed face had gone milky white, with the exception of her nose and the tops of her freckled cheeks, which were an angry red. She was still shaking visibly, even though she was wrapped up in flannel pajamas. Mulder felt almost lewd as his eyes scraped across her exposed clavicle. Scully opened her mouth, then closed it, turning back to the bathroom. She resurfaced a second later, holding a tissue box, which she pointed at Mulder. 

“We won’t know if they show up tomorrow, because we are going back home as soon as this storm lets up enough for us to drive.” 

Mulder didn’t protest, which she quirked an eyebrow at but didn’t comment on. He hurriedly went about his business, returning to see a tiny little Dana Scully curled up on the left side of the bed, having pulled all the blankets to her side. She was a verifiable blanket burrito. All that was left to see of her were her eyes and the tip of her pink nose. 

Mulder bit his lip. She looked miserable. 

“Dana.”

She looked at him, surprised. 

“Fox.” Her voice, albeit teasing, was still a little shaky and Mulder officially hated himself for making them stay out in the snow for as many hours as they had.

“I’m so sorry. I’m really really sorry for making us stay out there so long.”

She looked a bit flustered at such a candid apology, and took a moment to respond. 

“It’s okay. If it had really been all that bad, I wouldn’t have let you drag me around for as long as you did.”

Mulder didn’t want to think of what would be ‘really all that bad’ given her current state, but elected to move on. He threw himself onto the bed next to her, smiling at her small squeak of surprise. She returned to her dossier. Mulder pulled some of his files out as well, but both of them knew it was just for her benefit. He was actually watching Scully out of the corner of his eye. She was deeply engrossed in the files but more and more frequently her head would suddenly dip, before snapping back up to attention and covertly looking around to ensure that Mulder hadn’t caught her. He did his part to keep up the charade, dutifully flipping through paperwork without sparing a single glance at a single sheet. He was actually deep in thought, trying to figure out the best way to get Scully to sleep without her realizing it. Two head jerks later, Mulder had almost given up before he had a flash of genius. 

He waited a few moments before leaning back on the pillow, giving a yawn. Scully looked over at him over the rim of her glasses. Mulder let his eyes flutter (which wasn’t actually too hard, right about then he felt like he might collapse). 

“Mulder, when was the last time that you slept?” 

He gave his best performance of a sheepish overtired FBI agent, a character that was more familiar to him than he’d like to admit. “It’s been… a bit. But it isn’t too bad. I think we need to finish these, right?” 

Scully without a second thought gently pulled the files from his hands and put their combined papers on her bedside table. 

“How about we go to bed now, and tomorrow on the way back, you drive and I do the paperwork.” It wasn’t a proposition so much as a stating of a fact, but Mulder still went in with good old college try to make it seem realistic. 

“Are you sure? I can make it.” 

“No, you can’t. I’m turning the light off now, okay?” 

And just like that, the lights were off, and Scully was settling in, her chattering teeth starting to slow but her nose dripping as steadily as a faucet. Mulder allowed time for an internal fist pump before he went to deal with the next issue at hand, which was warming Scully up.

He was uncharacteristically embarrassed as he asked, “Are you still cold?” The question was interrupted with a poorly timed sneeze on Scully’s part. Mulder giggled the slightest bit before coercing his expression back into something a little more stoic. 

“Bless you. I’ll take that as a yes…”

Scully let that hang in the air before replying, “I’ve been warmer.”

Mulder took awhile to work up the gumption before shyly asking, “Can I… help you?” 

“Yes.” Her answer was without hesitation, and Mulder felt like a kid on Christmas for the briefest of moments. 

“Okay,” he said softly. Slowly, to avoid spooking her (or more aptly himself), he settled in around her small frame, trying to fold his endless limbs into submission. She was still quivering the slightest bit, but it started to slow almost the moment he wrapped his arms around her. He felt her breathing quicken (or maybe it was his own, just then the two of them felt like they shared more than what was separate) before it steadily returned to her normal pace. 

They laid like that, cocooned in the warmth of the dark. After silence for what was either minutes or hours, Scully let out a stuffed up snore. Mulder felt his whole body relax. He held her just a little tighter for a moment before closing his own eyes. 

“Good night, Scully.”


End file.
